


To Learn, To Profit, To Better Live

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Barebacking, Community: seasonofkink, F/M, M/M, Mild Kink, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Pool Sex, Relationship Negotiation, Sexual Fantasy, Silence Kink, Teasing, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:27:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Bucky’s conscience gets the better of him. It’s not her fault he was in rehab; not her fault that Steve had to detach. Just because Bucky came back doesn’t mean Steve should going to drop everything – including the dame he’s invited to live with him – for Bucky’s sake.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



Bucky’s first impression of Steve’s gal is the legs – long, slim pins in sleek blue denim. They always liked the girls with legs. Then there’s the body, lightly curved and hidden beneath a loose and floating shirt. Small breasts but curvy, a delicious hollow between her collarbones, dark hair pinned up but falling loose.

And, to top it off, blue eyes survey him, undaunted by his presence on Steve’s doorstep.

“You’d be Bucky. Steve said you were coming around.”

The first thought through his head is _I'd listen to her read the dictionary_. The second is _Fuck, no wonder Steve’s a goner._

But he holds out one hand for the handshake. “Just ‘Bucky’ is fine. And you’re Maria, right?”

“That’s correct.” Her handshake is a brisk and firm, and her callouses brush across his palms as she smiles faintly. “Thanks for not singing it. Steve’s out at an exec meeting – he was due back an hour ago, but…”

To hell with the dictionary. Bucky would listen to her read the terms and conditions of the operating system on his new phone.

“Exec meetings always take forever. Yakity-yak until it’s late and then they want to take you for drinks.”

As well as other things. But he’s not thinking about that. The stir of memory discomforts him – along with the realisation of what it means to be staying with Steve this time out. He’s going to stay clean, and that means sticking with the plan – avoiding unnecessary stress, having someone in his life to keep him accountable, and meeting with the therapist.

“Well, he’s not out yet, or he’d have texted.” She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Do you need anything to eat? A glass of water? Juice? Soda? Beer?”

Obviously Steve’s discussed Bucky with her if she’s okay with him just turning up. Which, of course Steve would have, only...

Bucky is starting to realise he didn’t really think this through.

He’ll be living with Steve again, but it’s not as though they can go back to how everything was. Bucky’s been in and out of rehab for the last seven years, and while Steve has never given up on him, he’s also started to live his own life, write his own songs, and make his own scandals. There’s only so much a man can do for a buddy who doesn’t want anyone to fix him but won’t fix himself either.

“I know where everything is.” It comes out more brusque than he intends, and she blinks, although her tone is courteous as she turns away.

“Of course. You probably know the house better than I do. I’ll be upstairs—”

Bucky’s conscience gets the better of him. It’s not her fault he was in rehab; not her fault that Steve had to detach. Just because Bucky came back doesn’t mean Steve should going to drop everything – including the dame he’s invited to live with him – for Bucky’s sake.

“I’m sorry.” She stops halfway to the stairs, and Bucky blurts out the rest of what he has to say before he can rethink it. “That was—I shouldn’t have snapped. I could make excuses, but they’d be just that – excuses. Can you—Can we start over?”

She turns, and her expression is coolly polite. “Start over _how_?”

He crosses the floor to her, holds out his hand again. “I’m Bucky, I’m just out of rehab, and I can be a dick when I don’t put my mind to being otherwise. Steve and I used to be close, but that was years ago. Thank you for letting me stay here – I promise to work at not being an asshole about my issues.”

After a moment, she takes his hand. “Maria. And _don’t_ sing it.”

Bucky grins.

Okay, so this isn’t the way he envisioned returning to Steve, but a lot of life has passed since the last time they were on regularly speaking terms and Bucky wasn’t in some kind of rehab or another. And the universe doesn’t exist to make him happy, as assorted people have told him through the years.

The truth is that if Bucky wants happiness, contentment, and satisfaction, he’ll have to start making his own.

* * *

Steve comes home successful and gleeful. He sweeps Maria up the instant she comes out to see him, and she laughs and wraps her legs around his hips, slinging her arms around his neck. “I take it news is good?”

“They’re down with the album.”

“I told you Fury would come through.”

“You did. And I didn’t listen.” The smile turns subtly knowing and his hand slides up under her shirt edge. Bucky can imagine the heat of it splayed in the small of her back. “Want me to apologise?”

Maria tilts her head to the side and Steve turns his head, his eyes widening as he realises Bucky’s leaning against the doorway. He lets Maria down and slowly approaches Bucky, as though he’s not entirely sure he believes his eyes. Then, suddenly, he’s crushing Bucky in a back-pounding hug and laughing like he's ten years old, it's Christmas, and he's gotten the best gift ever.

“You came.”

“You invited me.” The slight bristle of Steve’s scruff rubs against his ear, and Bucky holds him tight, strength and comfort and heart. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Anytime.” Steve pulls back and studies him. “It’s really going okay?”

“It’s going good. Twelve steps.”

“Good. Good.” Steve shakes him, then looks over at Maria, who appears to be smiling. “This calls for dinner!”

“Going out for dinner?”

“Oh, yeah. I guess.” The grimace is rueful as he turns to Bucky. “We're trying not to eat out so often. It'll have to be dinner in. If you don't mind.”

“Nothing's like home-cooked,” Bucky reminds him.

“Well, we're not quite that fancy here."

“We?” Maria queries. "You'd better be good to cook."

“I’m always good. To cook,” he adds when Maria rolls her eyes. But the grin is one Bucky remembers – buoyant with the energy and mischief of the reckless youths they were all those years ago. “Buck? What’s your pleasure?”

The answer isn’t suitable for mixed company – and most especially not in the company of a woman Steve’s fucking. So Bucky just shrugs.

“What’s on the menu?”

The menu ends up being chicken breasts on the grill with salad greens and blackened corn, which Bucky mostly cooks out on the entertaining deck while Steve prepares the salad and steals kisses from Maria as she tops up wine glasses and reads her tablet.

Bucky gets the feeling that if he wasn’t here, dinner would be rather later than it is.

They chat about everything and nothing. Steve talks a little about the album he’s working on – apparently he’s co-writing some of the songs with Maria. Bucky initially wonders whether that was Steve’s idea or Maria’s, although it turns out she’s a pretty decent songwriter, having penned a number of songs that Bucky is familiar with, even if he’s been out of the scene for a while.

And her voice...

Bucky recognises the professional singing training she’s had, even if the Commandos were soft rock back in their heyday. While she’s singing one of the duets she’s writing with Steve, Bucky has a moment of _deja vu_ – like he’s heard her before, if he can only pinpoint it...

They stop to change Steve’s chords, and she hums the new chord configuration then lets him try the sequence...

“Yeah, I see the change.” Steve plays through the chords. “So it’s the inverted fifth, down to the modulated third, and the harmonic seventh – that won’t be too awkward a jump for you?”

“... _home on the horizons._.. No, I can do it. So long as I’ve warmed up first.”

“Okay, if you say.”

They finish making notes on the song before Maria gets up and stretches. Bucky watches the rise of her t-shirt him to reveal the little divot of her belly button and swallows hard. Then he admires the curve of her thigh into the leg of her Daisy Dukes as she leans over to kiss Steve good-night – particularly when Steve’s hand slides up the smooth, tanned skin, fingers and traces in under the denim to stroke soft and giving flesh.

Bucky’s heart thumps loudly in his chest, as he watches Steve’s long, familiar fingers on the verge of sliding into intimate places, while Maria gives a murmuring laugh and breaks the kiss. He imagines it would be utterly incendiary to watch his buddy finger-fucking his dame – his face against her abdomen, her hands flexing helplessly on Steve’s shoulders as his fingers drove deeply into her until she came and her knees sagged.

He drags his gaze away before they can turn around and see him thinking of them fucking right in front of him, but it’s too late – his imagination is caught.

Maria atop Steve, but watching Bucky, cupping her breasts as though in offering. Maria spreadeagled under Steve as his hips work her slow and easy and he grins at Bucky in exultant orgasm. Maria lifting her head from the couch cushions, the tips of her breasts just scraping the upholstery as Steve thrusts into her from behind with a wet slap of flesh, and they smirk at Bucky as her jerks himself desperate for release...

“G’night, Bucky.”

“Good night, Maria.”

He hopes she doesn’t notice the flush on his cheeks. Small hope that Steve hasn’t.

Still, his buddy doesn’t do more than quirk an eyebrow at him as Maria closes the door gently behind her.

“So,” Bucky has to clear his throat before continuing. “So what’s her story? She’s no groupie; she knows about the industry, but she’s not interested in the publicity…”

“Oh, Maria had her time in the limelight and decided she didn’t like it.” Steve picks out a melody on the strings – light, but a little haunting. “I had a fight on my hands to get her to stay, but I think she will.”

Bucky snorts at Steve’s modifier. “If you got her this far, she’s not going to walk away.”

“Yeah, well, I hope not.” And from what Bucky can tell, Steve’s serious. Which, he thinks, is crazy. Because as heels-over as his buddy is for this dame, the dame is equally heels-over for him – in her own restrained and intense way.

Lucky Steve, to find a woman like a magnifying glass. Lucky Maria, to have a man who won’t burst into flame at her intensity.

Bucky isn’t sure if he’s lucky or unlucky to have gotten to watch them together. Steve was always pretty private – for obvious reasons – but he’s relaxed with Bucky, and Maria appears to have taken her cue from him.

A friend who’ll stand by him, no matter what, and the woman who trusts him because her lover does.

“So, tell me about this album you’re dropping.”

They talk for another two hours, trading ‘do you remembers’ and ‘what happened tos’ and ‘did you evers’ before they head for bed.

Even though it’s separate beds for them, Bucky has missed Steve, more than he can ever explain to his friend.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks: "voyeurism", "gags/silence", "fantasies".

Bucky wakes early out of habit. He can go back to sleep, but the filtering light around the edges of the curtain suggests a glorious day, and he’s kind of hungry.

He showers and shaves, dresses himself, and starts along the corridor.

Pauses at the top of the stairs.

There’s no mistaking the noises emitting through the half-open door of the nearby bedroom. Nothing as blatant as grunts and moans, just the damp squelch of flesh moving in flesh, punctuated by hoarse breathing and the muffled whimper of a woman on the verge of orgasm.

“Steve...” It’s a barely-heard whimper, and Bucky imagines Maria’s head back against the pillows, her body arching as Steve grinds his hips heavily into hers.

“Shhh...” Bucky has to strain to hear Steve beneath the soft, wet sounds of sex. “We have to be quiet. We’ve got a guest in the house.”

The choked little noise that Maria makes is exquisite, but apart from that one noise and the panting rasp of her breath, Bucky doesn’t hear her speak again.

What he hears is Steve. Steve whispering about how hungry he is and how he can’t wait for breakfast, asking questions about what Maria wants to do after a wash and breakfast, reminding her that Bucky is just down the hall and she can’t just squeal when she comes, no matter how hot Steve finds it...

In spite of Steve’s insistent exhortations, however, Maria can’t quite hold back a stuttering whimper, her breath catching in what Bucky imagines is shuddering relief – or Steve covering her mouth with his.

He could do with some of that himself – his dick is almost rigid in his jeans.

Carefully, quietly, he makes his way back to his room and the attached bathroom, takes himself out, and eases his dick into his hands. Jerking himself off takes less than a minute – all he has to do is think of the hard length of Steve in his hand, the soft depths of Maria clenching slick and strong around him—

He flushes the tissue, tucks himself away, runs a facecloth around his nape to wipe off the sweat.

Then he goes downstairs, this time taking care to make enough noise that they can hear him.

A hunt through the kitchen cupboards prompts the discovery of a waffle-maker, and all the basic ingredients necessary for waffles from scratch – including butter and maple syrup for topping, because Steve will be starving after a round in bed. A petty little part of him thinks that if Maria is the type to get fussy about ‘fattening’ things, then she can get her own breakfast and that’ll be more waffles for Bucky.

Of course, Maria comes downstairs first, in shorts and a t-shirt, sauntering like a woman who’s been very well-pleased and isn’t ashamed to show it. When Bucky slides the plate over, she grins at him – a stunner of a smile – and his nape breaks into a pearl of sweat.

“Nice to have a man who’s good in the kitchen.”

“I can also cook.” Bucky glances up, seeing if she blushes. She doesn’t. Which is kind of a pity because he would really like to see this dame discombobulated. Although in the last dozen hours, he’s gathered there’s not much which throws her for a loop.

Then she takes the first bite of waffle and her eyes practically roll back in her head. “Oh, my _god_!”

Frankly, she looks like she’s about to come right there on the stool. Bucky grins, appreciative. “Told you I was good in the kitchen.”

“Are you flirting with my girl, Buck?” Steve saunters in, drops a kiss on Maria’s neck, and heads over to the coffee machine. “I hope at least a couple of those have my name on them.”

“At least a couple.” Bucky turns out the second set of waffles. “Take those. And that wasn’t flirting. That was general innuendo in the course of conversation. Right, Maria?”

“Can’t talk,” she says, another bite of waffle on its way to her mouth. “Having foodgasm.”

“And here I thought the way to a _man’s_ heart was through his stomach.”

“Actually,” Maria says dulcetly, “it’s up under the breastbone and in beneath the ribcage.”

Bucky’s not sure he’s more turned on by the matter-of-fact way she says it, or the way she licks the excess syrup off her lips.

* * *

The next few days are hard. Pun fully intended.

Bucky settles into the routine of the household, such as it is.

Maria and Steve compose their album, discuss everything from world politics to A-list gossip, and can’t seem to keep their hands off each other for more than twelve hours at a time.

Okay, so maybe it’s not _that_ often, but it feels like it when Bucky keeps happening across them. On the deck lounger. Astride the piano stool. Against the kitchen bench. In the downstairs bathroom.

Then, too, it’s several kinds of hell when Steve’s the vocal one, and Bucky can tell exactly what’s happening by the low, intimate tones urging Maria on, by the little hitches in Steve’s voice, by the gasps and the pants and the groans. _Just a little more, you feel so good, yes, like that, is it good for you?_ Steve’s voice strokes Bucky’s dick like a tongue teasing the vein up before swiping across the tip. 

They have doors in this house, they just have to remember to use the damn things when fucking!

Not that Maria’s any less provocative. Yes, it’s the height of summer, but the woman could remember to put some damn clothes on once in a while – particularly when they have a houseguest!

Something  _other_ than Steve’s old, threadbare t-shirts. Because she doesn’t wear bras and Bucky can see her nipples through the fabric – rosy areola, delicate tip – and it makes his mouth water and his hands twitch. And that’s not even considering her legs, which, as he noticed the first day she opened the door, are goddamn  _amazing_ ...

But it’s Maria’s hands that drive him crazy. Long, slender fingers, with the nails clipped close to the end, but always manicured with a shiny, sexy polish. Bucky watches her put sandwiches together and imagines nipping each knuckle with his lips. When her fingernails flash magenta polish over the keys as she tries out chords, he thinks of those fingernails combing through his pubic hair. When she puts one finger on the music to guide where she’s going, he thinks of that finger rubbing over his anus before pushing in, working past the ring of muscles and stroking his prostate while he writhes in pleasure—

“Is it too warm?” She tilts her head at him from the piano stool. “You’re nearly sweating...”

“I...” Bucky snaps his teeth shut so fast, he nearly bites off his tongue. “I’m just... I think I’ll go outside. The garden’s nice this time of day.”

Maria gives him a look, but lets him go, and he hears the piano starting up again as he stalks through the house and out to the extensive backyard a few minutes later.

The therapist he saw while in rehab told him that addicts never stop being addicts. But sometimes the need or obsession – the focal drive – can transfer to something less damaging than drugs or alcohol.

Bucky isn’t so sure that an obsession with his best friend and his best friend’s girl is ‘less damaging’.

It would be a thousand times easier if Steve’s pleasure in Bucky’s presence wasn’t a palpable thing. He loves having Bucky back again, and he’s not afraid to show it, whether by getting Bucky to help with dinner, wrapping him in a random hug when they cross paths in the hallway, or coming by his room to see if he needs anything washed, and handing him a pitchfork and gloves so he can help dig the kitchen garden patch they have out by the laundry door.

They talk about old things and new things. The old crew (mostly retired, although a few died of overdose or hard living), the guy Peggy ended up marrying (ex-Army, Chicago music industry, a decent guy), the friends Steve made at S.H.I.E.L.D Records (good people, if not precisely normal), how he met Maria (rusticating after nearly getting caught in bed with a music exec’s wife), and why she seems so familiar to Bucky (not Steve’s story to tell).

Bucky wants to grab Steve’s butt when he bends down to pick up the pot of herbs they’re planting in. He wants to peel off his glove, stick his hand down Steve’s jeans and jack him off here in the sweltering summer air. He wants to turn and lick the sweat off Steve’s neck when his buddy puts an arm around his shoulders on the way back to the house. He wants to go down to his knees on the tiled floor of the mud-room, take Steve in his mouth and suck him so deep he won’t taste the semen when Steve orgasms.

He jerks off in the shower, then sits down to the lunch Maria’s assembled before she comes in to drop a kiss on Steve’s neck, tell him she’ll be back for dinner but won’t have any appetite, and vanishes out to ‘catch up with friends’.

Does she have any idea of just how close Bucky comes to ‘catching up’ with Steve? She can’t or she’d have never left them alone.

Bucky eats his goddamn sandwich.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks: "wet/dirty", "barebacking/unsafe sex", and "teasing".

Weirdly, Maria doesn’t seem at all jealous of Bucky. And it’s not like she can’t know about their history. Steve, being Steve, would have told her that they were lovers back in the day. Not that Steve is the type to cheat, but most women would have a fit if an ex-lover turned up on their boyfriend’s doorstep, no matter what gender or sex the ex-lover was.

Maria? Apart from padding around in panties and a t-shirt with little regard for Bucky’s libido, she asks his opinion on the music she’s composing, requests he load and unload the dishwasher, and leaves him alone with Steve without a backwards glance.

She ignores him when she wants to ignore him, doesn’t give him any special treatment, even takes him shopping for everything from surround sound systems to groceries.

“Seriously?” Bucky asks as they pull into the local All-Foods high-end grocery chain. “We’re doing the grocery shopping?”

“Shopping with you is better than shopping with Steve. People recognise him and it takes an hour to get so much as a carton of milk,” Maria says, handing him a couple of ratty old green bags. “And even famous people sometimes like to choose their own pop-tarts.”

There’s probably a joke in there about popping tarts, or cherry tarts popping him, or cherries or...

Bucky can’t think of it. Instead, he trails behind her with the trolley, like some kind of domesticated puppy waiting for a pat and a rub of his belly. He bets Maria gives the most amazing belly rubs, stroking circles over his abdomen, teasing the hairs down his snail trail, tracing the line of muscle over his hip and down to his groin...

“Earth to Barnes,” she murmurs, sounding brisk even with her voice lowered so it’s not easily audible. “She’s gone into the next lane.”

“She’s gone...?”

Maria regards him with blue eyes that manage to convey exasperation and fondness all at once. “You really need to get laid.”

Bucky nearly asks,  _Are you offering_ ? _Either you or Steve would do nicely._

“Although she _was_ rather nicely curved.” Oblivious to Bucky’s surprise, Maria makes a face. “They do say you want whatever you don’t have.”

“Your figure is perfectly fine.”

“I have nothing in the curves department. That’s not a request for a compliment, by the way; it’s a statement of a fact. Cherry or chocolate-cinnamon?”

“What?”

She waves the boxes at him. “Cherry or chocolate-cinnamon pop-tarts?” When he hesitates, a look of sympathy enters her gaze. “Three more aisles and the fresh produce, and we’ll be done and go home.”

Three more aisles and the fresh produce section is not hell, just a little awkward to navigate when he’s got a boner and is trying not to show it. By the time they load up the SUV and he climbs into the passenger seat, he has it under control.

He wonders what she would have said if he’d climbed in and buckled up with visible wood.

Then again, this is Maria; she would have just taken it in stride...just not in her mouth.

Bucky opens the window and breathes in the slipstream of air with more than a little desperation. He gives the expected answers when Maria addresses him, but nothing more. Thankfully, her silence is contemplative rather than offended at his reluctance to converse, and she doesn’t push him to speak. He helps her put the groceries away, and doesn’t flinch when she brushes past him and the open fridge door. Mostly because he’s gripping the handle of the fridge so hard, he’s surprised it’s not leaving marks in the stainless steel.

Between her and Steve, he’s being driven  _nuts_ .

“I’m going for a swim,” she declares when everything’s been put away. “You’re welcome to come if you want.”

The only place Bucky wants to come right now is in her.

He declines the swim.

* * *

Turning the compost is a hot, awful job at the best of times. And the middle of a summer’s day is not the best of times.

But it’s one way to get rid of all the pent-up frustration he’s feeling – a way that doesn’t involve betraying either of them.

Steve is so close and yet so clearly in love with Maria when he hip-checks her and makes her coffee, and buys the bread she likes, and watches her composing. And Maria may not be as casually affectionate, but there’s a look in her eyes that makes Bucky think that she’d burn the world to ashes without regrets so long as Steve had her back. Talk about obsessions.

By the time the compost is turned down the end of the garden, Bucky is exhausted and in a bad temper and wants nothing more than a cool dip.

He forgets that Maria’s in the pool until he hears the ripple of water as someone cuts through it. Then he’s too close to care.

When he sits down on one of the loungers and starts pulling off his boots, she’s paused at the end of the ‘lap pool’ attached to the side of the main pool area, slicking her hair back, then ducks back under and starts swimming back in.

Bucky figures he’s going to strip down to his boxers and just cool off before going inside for a shower. And if Maria gets an eyeful, well, turnabout is fair play.

He dives in, and the water is amazing after the burdensome heat of the day. It’s cool and refreshing over his skin as he does a short lap to the end of the pool – not the proper lap section – and comes back to the shallow end where he stands up and shoves his hair out of his face. He’s been letting it grow longer again, hearkening back to the band’s days, and while he rather likes the look, it can be a pain to keep out of his face.

A squirt of water gets him in the eye, and a ripple of laughter rings out.

When he looks up, Maria’s grinning from ear to ear.

“What the hell was that?”

She brings her hands up again, close-cupped, and this time he sees the squirt of water she aims expertly at him, but still gets the lingering spray, even as he dodges.

“Oh, you are in such trouble—”

Bucky swims after her, and she slips away, but he follows her through the water with sharp, swift strokes, gets one hand on her ankle and yanks her back and into his arms—

_Such. Trouble._

Bare skin, slippery and wet. The soft burr of a trimmed mound against his thigh. The swell of small breasts against his arm, tipped by puckered nipples. And when he looks into her eyes, he realises that it’s all been a tease – a very deliberate, determined—

Maria’s lips part as he positions her against him so his boxer-covered erection is right between her thighs and uses his hands to grind her against him. Her arms slide around his neck, silky wet skin, and seductive heat.

“I’m going to kill you,” he growls, and drifts them over to the edge of the pool where he wedges her up against the side. She may not have the curves she wants, but what she’s got is more than sufficient for Bucky.

“Promises, promises,” she murmurs before he fastens his mouth on hers and gives in to the frustration of the last three weeks. His kiss is hard and rough, nipping at her lips with his teeth, using the rhythm of his hips against hers to add pulse.

Even through the water and his boxers, he can feel the slippery promise of her body, and by the time her hands work at the waistband of his boxers, he’s back to fully erect again. The silky fabric tries to cling to him when he shoves it down his thighs, his mouth still demanding on hers, but Maria helps by pushing it down over his hipbones with her thighs.

Bucky doesn’t bother getting the damn things entirely off. He’s too horny for finesse right now, and of more importance is whether Maria is actually ready—

She makes a little gasping noise when he slides his finger into her, but from the way she works her internal muscles, it’s not a protest. Bucky curls his finger and grins at the squeaky moan that escapes her mouth, then pulls his finger out and replaces it with his dick in one deep thrust.

He’s not as long as Steve, but he’s a little thicker when erect. From the startled look in Maria’s eyes, and the way her body flexes around his, she’s adjusting to the different feel of him.

Guilt claws briefly at Bucky, before he tells himself that he and Steve have shared girls before and that this isn’t any different. Maria’s willing – eager, if the inviting clench of her muscles is any indication – and it’s not— Bucky’s not trying—Steve will understand—

_Don’t think! Move!_

Bucky rolls his hips, experimentally. Maria sucks in a breath.

“Too big? Too much?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She eels against him, breasts and belly and slippery limbs. Bucky moves his hips again and revels in her little writhe of pleasure.

“I should just fuck you until I come,” he tells her. “Then leave you to ache.”

“Try it,” she flexes around him. “I won’t last long enough to ache.”

“Well, them’s fighting words—”

Bucky thrusts then – all the way out, all the way in – and groans at the pleasure of sensation. Amidst the swirl and bubble of the water around them, Maria makes this breathy hiccuping noise that’s very familiar from all those times Bucky listened to Steve fucking her out of her mind.

He wants to hear that again. So he thrusts again – a long, slow slide into her body, so she can feel every inch of him on the way in and again on the way out, so she can make those goddamn erotic noises when he's got her impaled and writhing.

Bucky’s body is a weapon and the mission objective is to fuck Maria until she’s desperate.

With her pinned between him and wall, he lets his fingers explore her, rubbing, touching, pinching, tweaking. Her breathing becomes shorter, the little gasps she’s holding in get sharper. And the twisting coil in Bucky’s balls is losing patience with slow and steady thrusts – even if they’re geared for maximum torment, they’re also geared for minimum satisfaction. He gets his hand between their bodies, parting the cleft of of her mons over her clit and swirling cool currents over the hot little bud before closing his thumb and forefinger over it.

Maria jerks with a stuttering moan and her body convulses. Bucky takes that as a sign and pushes her hard against the side of the pool as he sets his head into her throat and grinds into her. She chokes and angles her hips for the best pressure and claws his shoulders like a tigress. And Bucky hooks his arm around her back, his hand splaying against her nape as he shoves his way through the last, lingering haze of desperation to the present pleasure of release.

It occurs to him that they didn’t take precautions.

He shoves the thought away.

It occurs to him that they’re in an outdoor pool in broad daylight.

He shoves the thought away.

Maria’s hand lingers on his nape, and he doesn’t look up into her eyes, because he doesn’t want to face reality just yet.

He lingers in that moment as long as he can, because when Steve comes home...

There’ll be music to face.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks: "consent/negotiation", "threesome"

“We’re going to tell Steve,” he says when she begins easing herself away from him. “I’m not keeping this from him.”

Maria blinks, and in spite of the cold pit in Bucky’s belly, he wants to trace his fingers along the dark sweep of her lashes. The thought dissipates as she jerks her head towards the pool loungers. “He already knows.”

Bucky whirls, expecting... Well, he’s not sure  _what_ he expects. However, a couple of cold beers sitting beside a couple of folded towels and Bucky’s discarded clothes are not it.

Maria’s already swimming across the pool to the steps, and climbs out, completely unselfconscious in her nudity. Bucky adjusts his boxers back over his balls as he climbs out and stares at his towel and his beer. His brain isn’t working properly, his thoughts thick and distant in his head.

_He already knows?_

Bucky picks up the towel and wraps it about his waist, tucking the end in. He takes the beer in one hand, and grabs his workclothes and boots in the other. He follows Maria back into the house, through to the lounge where Steve is sitting with the baseball on, a beer by his elbow, as casually as if he didn’t just find his girl and his best friend fucking in the pool.

Maria crosses to him and drops a kiss on the top of Steve’s head.

“Everything okay with the label?”

“All on track.” Steve looks up at her briefly. “You?”

“We went for groceries.” As though that’s the sum total of what they did this afternoon. “You didn’t say he was bigger.”

Steve’s eyes fix on Bucky, a little wary, a little hesitant. “I didn’t think to mention it.” Then something in them gleams and he looks back over at Maria. “You know that second place tries harder, right?”

She rolls her eyes, drops the towel and slips the t-shirt that’s draped over the back of the lounge over her head, before stepping behind the lounge and pulling up a pair of panties and a pair of denim shorts. “You’ve been looking for the last two weeks,” she says, and it takes Bucky a moment to realise she’s addressing him.

“Looking and wanting,” Steve adds.

“You were playing me.”

“We were giving you a taste,” Maria says. “In case you wanted to back out.”

“And it would have been nice to know that before you seduced me in the pool!”

She sits down on the ottoman, plants her hands behind her, and stretches out her legs. “Nuh-uh. I didn’t seduce you – you made the first moves. I only made moves back after you’d shown interest.”

Steve makes a noise like a stifled laugh. When they both look at him, he shrugs at Bucky. “Look, we probably should have talked to you about it— We were going to, and then—”

“Things got out of hand.”

“Out of clothes, you mean,” Bucky glares at Maria, because it’s easier than glaring at Steve. “No wonder you were always walking around the house in nothing!”

“I never walked around in _nothing_.” She tilts her head at Steve. “Is he always this dramatic?”

“Actually, yes.” Steve looks at him fondly. 

Maria’s sigh is exasperated and not a little dramatic itself. “Queens, both of you!”

“Brooklyns, actually.” Bucky drawls, and earns himself a glare. “All right, so what are you proposing?”

They look at each other, Steve’s brows arching, Maria’s expression droll. Then Maria lifts her chin a little, as though to say,  _you first_ .

“You join us.”

“As a partner?”

“What else would you be—?” Steve pauses and looks at Maria. “No?”

“Unless he desperately _wants_ a collar... No.” She looks Bucky up and down. “Although I wouldn’t mind tying him up every now and then and just...making him beg for it.”

“Right back atcha,” Bucky retorts and is intrigued to see her blush. “What? Steve can’t tie the knots tight enough?”

“She says I’m not mean enough.”

“Well, you’re not.” Maria reaches out and pokes Steve’s knee. “You’re also really bad at negotiating.”

“I’m not as good as you, you mean.” Steve grabs her wrist and tugs at her arm. “But I can last a long time, can’t I? A _really_ long time...”

Bucky remembers that – being ass-fucked out of his mind while Steve talked of everything and nothing, like they were sitting at a desk instead of naked in bed and all tangled up... He eyes Maria and wonders if she likes it in the ass every now and then. Then again, he is rather large in girth, and that’s not to everyone’s tastes...

“I recognise that look,” Steve says after a moment. “Aren’t you spent?”

“Pretty much.” Bucky knows his limits. But if the flesh is weak, then the spirit is very willing right now, and out of the three of them, Steve hasn’t yet had an orgasm – in fact, had to watch Bucky and Maria going at it and wait for them to finish... 

But he wants a few things clear. “You’re asking me to join you as a partner in bed.”

“And out of it, if you like.” Maria shrugs. “If you only want to sleep with us occasionally – or just with Steve—”

“You’re not getting out of it,” he says. “Unless you’ve decided I’m not up to standard, after all.”

She looks him up and down. “Oh, I’d definitely take that ride again.”

“I’ll have to see if I can’t outlast Steve, then.”

Steve snorts. “This is beside the point, Buck. We want you.” The words are simple and powerful for that simplicity. “We want you in bed and out of it. If you don’t want one part of it, or you don’t want any part of it, then we’ll just be friends. And Maria will stop walking around half-naked.”

“It wasn’t half-naked.”

“Whatever it was, it was hard on me, too.”

“So you _can_ usually keep your hands off her?”

“No.” Steve grins at Maria. “But sometimes she likes being ambushed.”

“Oh, like I’m the only one!” She slides over the ottoman to tuck herself in against Steve’s side on the couch, and her hand cups his groin through the slacks he wore out. “You were there watching us for a while. Did you need to touch yourself to take off the edge?”

Her voice has dropped to a hot, husky tone, and her fingers splay expertly around the rapidly-swelling bulge in Steve’s trousers. And Bucky watches as Steve’s head lolls back as he gives himself over to Maria’s touch, his hips pressing up into her hand. “I thought about it. I nearly did...”

“But you wanted Bucky, didn’t you?” Maria murmurs, her hand still shaping and moulding and rubbing. “You wanted his mouth on you, licking and sucking and swallowing. You wanted to fuck his face – the way you want to fuck mine but you never do...”

“You choked on me last time,” he mutters. “Call me cautious, but I like you alive.”

Maria rolls her eyes – as though survival is unimportant in the question of sex – and looks to Bucky. “Well?”

He hesitates. They really mean this?

Steve lifts his head. “Please?”

Bucky is kneeling on the floor between Steve’s knees a moment later. Maria leaves off touching Steve and starts unbuttoning his shirt, pushing the edges off to the sides, baring Steve’s chest and belly. Then she traces her fingers along Steve’s skin, fingertips dancing up his sides before stroking intricate patterns down to where Bucky has Steve’s fly open and is drawing off Steve’s slacks.

He wasn’t so much into giving head back in the days of the band; he much preferred Steve’s mouth on him. But now...

A painted fingernail gently circles the swollen tip of Steve’s erection, then traces a line down the underside before cupping his balls. Steve’s hips roll, seeking contact with something – anything!

Bucky leans over, takes the bulbuous head in his mouth and sucks hard.

The noise Steve makes is gratifyingly incoherent. Bucky works his tongue and cheeks around the tip, lapping and licking, occasionally adding teeth. And Steve grunts as Bucky grazes him with his teeth, and Maria murmurs in his ear, something about how hot she finds it watching them.

Bucky flicks a glance up and finds Steve thrusting his hands up Maria’s shirt, a flush riding high on his cheekbones as his hips twitch, wanting desperately to thrust...

Bucky obliges by deep-throating him. And his name is on Steve’s lips as the strong hips thrust, giving in to base instinct and filling Bucky full, until he has to draw back for breathing.

They’ll work at it, he thinks as he resumes pressure on the tip. It’s been a while since he gave head.

A hand strokes through his hair – a caress of pretty fingernails that then slide down to Bucky’s lips and from there graze down Steve’s dick to take his balls in hand and tug lightly. And Steve is shaking, his sounds of pleasure being muffled by Maria’s mouth until—

Steve’s orgasmic groan is like music, and the taste of him is hotly sensual in Bucky’s mouth. Maria laughs, and her fingers rub at the thigh by Bucky’s jaw, settling and soothing, even as Bucky keeps sucking and licking and cupping and tugging until Steve is relaxed, his body going limp in post-coital relief.

Bucky licks a wet stripe up Steve’s dick, then skims the long, hot body all the way up to Steve’s mouth.

The hand behind his head is a little unexpected, but very welcome, as Steve practically sucks the taste of his own semen from Bucky’s mouth.

When they break away, Bucky’s panting, too – he’d forgotten what a force of nature Steve could be – and when Maria touches his chin he looks up at her—

Her tongue snakes delicately into his, a quick and sensuous tasting. Bucky gets hold of his thoughts just as as she retreats and all he manages to nip is just the tip of her tongue before she retreats.

“Like the taste of me on Bucky’s lips?” Steve manages breathlessly.

“It’s not bad.” She repeats the gesture with Steve. Then settles her chin on his shoulder and looks over at Bucky. “So are you in?”

Bucky thinks about it – or, at least, gives the appearance of thinking about it. Then he leans over and tweaks Maria’s nipple. “Okay.”

Steve’s arm comes around his shoulders. “Great. I need a shower.”

“I need dinner.”

Maria sighs. “I want a shower and dinner, but if I have the first we won’t be having the second for a while.” She pokes Steve as the hand around her back starts delicately stroking her hip. “No. You just came—” Bucky reaches over and tweaks her nipple again and she fixes him with a glare. “Oh, don’t  _you_ start _—_ ”

Steve glances at Bucky, the old grin on his face, and hauls her up on top, so they both can reach her and she’s fighting them  _and_ gravity...

They get to dinner, eventually.

_Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be._

_Let us learn from the past to profit by the present,  
and from the present, to live better in the future. _

_William Wordsworth_

 


End file.
